Religion & American Law

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Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock sued the Encinitas Union School District after they decided to incorporate yoga into physical education. Stephen and Jennifer believed that this program violated the religious-freedom provisions in California’s constitution. During their court briefs, Stephen and Jennifer said yoga was “a Hindu religious exercise or practice that is simultaneously physical and religious”.

The origins of yoga have been disputed but it is well known that it is closely related to Hinduism since it is one of Hinduism’s major components. The program was funded by the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois’s foundation and the yoga poses taught were adapted from Ashtanga yoga. Ashtanga yoga is built around eight pillars, which include union with the divine. Mr. Jois’s foundation trained the yoga instructors with a mission to eliminate religious connections in the practice.

This yoga program was originally proposed in 2012 and after parents complained of religious overtones the school district removed references to the spiritual or divine and also removed the curriculum description that stated, “yoga brings out the inner spirit of the child”. The poses in the program used kid-friendly names. For example the Lotus pose was called “crisscross applesauce”.

The California Fourth District Court of Appeal said, “It is clear that while yoga may be practiced for religious reasons, it cannot be said to be inherently religious or overtly sectarian. In the absence of evidence that the District’s program advances religion, no religious coercion is present”. This case decided that religious practices could be deemed unreligious depending how they are taught. Since there are distinct ties between yoga and Hinduism, the foundation made their yoga practice in schools non religious by making sure the yoga instructors were teaching the physical exercise portion and not the religious practice involved in Ashtanga yoga. This program was deemed, “devoid of any religious, mystical or spiritual trappings”, and allowed to continue within the nine Encinitas Schools.

I agree with the courts that the yoga program should be allowed to continue because of the effort made to make the yoga practice not related to religious teachings. Since the program was created to non-religious, the religious-freedom provisions of California’s constitution could not have been violated. I believe encouraging children to try many different types of exercise is something extremely important in schools because it can lead to healthy life habits or a love for a specific sport.  Yoga has become extremely popular in the U.S. because it has a lot of mental and physical fitness related benefits and it should definitely be allowed to be taught in a schools physical education program.

Even though I think that this program does not violate the religious-freedom provisions, I do think that this issue could lead the courts down a slippery slope. Mixing religious beliefs and education has always been a highly debated issue in our country and this program is a small religious issue compared to others in our court system today. This court case decided that religious beliefs could be extracted from religious practices to allow the practices to be taught in public schools.

This article addresses a relatively recent change to a New York City education policy that will now allow preschools, both religious and nonreligious, to spread out the 6 hours and 20 minutes of instruction per day over 6 days, rather than 5 days. The main reason for this change is that it will now allow time for “non-program activities” during a short break that does not go towards the 6 hours and 20 minutes of secular schooling per day. The new policy also allows these schools to remain open on federal holidays, which may make it easier for the preschools run by religious organizations to close to observe their own religious holidays. It’s important to note that some of these preschool programs are tax funded and that Mayor Bill de Blasio enacted this policy in an attempt to encourage Orthodox Jewish organizations to open preschool programs.

This is a clear case of accommodation versus separation. Mayor de Blasio’s approach is to accommodate the religious views of organizations that may open preschool programs in order to increase overall enrollment in preschool. A separationist would argue that this action is clearly furthering religion by encouraging religious instruction during school and that it excessively entangles the government with religion.

Although many Supreme Court Justices have seemed to move away from using the Lemon test as a way to measure the constitutionality of laws such as this one, I do think it is a valuable tool in approaching these issues. It does, however, face many complications and interpretations in cases that have such competing interests. While some may say that this policy does not have a secular purpose (considering that it has been specifically enacted to further the participation of particular religious groups), it’d be hard to deny that increasing enrollment of preschool programs is not a secular goal. It has been proven that early childhood education can have a significant impact on later performance of students. This would clearly serve the state’s compelling interest of creating an educated population, which would help with reducing crime rate and improving the conditions of some neighborhoods. I think that this rule would pass the first prong of the Lemon test, even if it is religiously tainted, because early childhood education is part of a compelling state interest that leads into a predominantly secular purpose.

In regards to the second prong, it does seem as though this advances religion because it is blatantly encouraging religious organizations to open up preschool programs.  There’s no doubt in my mind that this new rule will further religion via religious education and prayer time. Not having this policy does not inhibit the religion either. Although it may present a slight burden, the religious organizations are still free to open up preschools even without this policy in place. But by implementing this policy, Mayor de Blasio is directly advancing the religious doctrines of Orthodox Jews by making it easier for them to create these programs.

Although the Supreme Court would usually stop once the policy violates one of the Lemon statements, analyzing this case with the third prong is still valuable. This case would certainly foster excessive entanglement between religion and government. This new rule essentially allows for prayer and religious activity during the school day with a loophole that would not count this as school time. Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, says that adding this policy ”add[s] up to a religious school funded with taxpayer money.” Even though the city does not directly run these preschools programs, it is still connected to the situation deeply enough that it does foster entanglement between the secular and the non-secular.

Unlike some of the cases we’ve most recently encountered, such as Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye vs. the City of Hialeah, this policy does not present an issue that is intentionally stepping on the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Rather, it’s a case where state interest has overridden constitutional concerns about government interaction with religion. Even though I believe the city is enacting this rule with secular purposes and interests in mind, it advances religion and creates entanglement that cannot sit justly with the previous Court rulings.

Despite controversy regarding Indiana’s recently passed, “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson signed a similar bill into law on April 3, 2015. The governor originally refused to sign the bill into law, which prompted the House to amend the bill quickly in order to get it passed. The bill in its original form was, “the most extreme version of a religious freedom act in the country,” and it was amended so that it appeared closer to the federal bill already in place.

            Bill 975 was passed with a 26 to 0 vote and allows businesses to refuse service to customers if the actions of those customers violate the religious beliefs of the religious business owners. One of the Bill’s sponsors described the Bill’s purpose as, "We're going to allow a person to believe what they want to believe without the state coming in and burdening that unless they've got a good reason to do so." The intention of the Bill is to protect religious citizens from being forced to participate in activities that go against their beliefs. 

This Bill, like the Indiana one, appears facially neutral. Nowhere in the bill does it say anything about discrimination towards the LGBTQ community. However, many people, gay or not, believe it is implied. Bill 975 gives justification to many of the current events we’ve been talking about in class recently such as the baker in Colorado, the doctor in Michigan, and the videographer in Ohio.  Under this Bill, all of these individuals would have been protected from being forced to serve the same-sex couples in each case. In addition, this Bill was passed just before the Supreme Court is expected to make a ruling regarding same-sex marriage. Many view this Bill as a preemptive measure put in place to protect religious business owners from the ruling the Supreme Court may make soon. 

            Although I do think that this Bill is discriminatory, I do think it is constitutional. The Free Exercise Clause was designed to protect the religious beliefs of individuals. I think forcing private business owners to do something that directly goes against their religious beliefs violates the Free Exercise clause. Their ability to freely practice their religion is compromised if they are forced to act in ways that violate their religious beliefs such as catering a same-sex wedding or making a floral arrangement for a same-sex couple.

This bill to me brings up the question of whose rights are more important? Is it the rights of people who live their lives in conjunction with their religious beliefs or the rights of people who want to be treated equally? I think it’s an extremely tough question to answer with no answer being the “right” one. What’s right for one group of people is not what’s necessarily right for another group which makes a Bill like this extremely difficult to pass judgment on.

Should this Bill have been passed? Is the right of Free Exercise more important than the rights of the LGBTQ community—who are citizens of this country too? Are the two even comparable?

What do you think? 

http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/415819/first-amendment-scotus-case-could-bring-much-needed-clarification-what